New York City (Mayor De Blasio above) together with Berlin, Paris, Rome and Sydney are governed by centre-left mayors, while the leaders of London, Tokyo, Madrid and Moscow pursue conservative/centre-right policies

28 July 2014: The narrative of the global pattern of urbanization is that we are said to live in the ‘urban century’ and the ‘age of the mayor’. Current affairs weeklies nod with approval at mayor-centred urban analysis by Richard Florida, Benjamin Barber and Bruce Katz  city rankings now enjoy the kind of media glow once reserved for corporate giants. But who gets to govern the world’s biggest cities? City Mayors examines the shifts in urban political allegiances and party machines over the past five years.

In City Mayors’ 2009 report (updated 2011) we assessed what political characteristics, if any, united the world’s biggest city governments. Though over the previous decade conservatives at national level had scored a number of electoral successes around the world, with many citizens identifying with messages on security, leaner government and lower taxes  our research however found that many of the world’s largest and most prominent cities were still governed by mayors from the left or centre-left. How then do mayors in 2014 stack up?

First, a few trends. In the early 2000s European capitals such as Berlin, Paris, Rome and London, with its newly-minted city mayoralty, were united in having mayors belonging to social democratic parties. In the case of London (Ken Livingstone), Paris (Bertrand Delanoë) and Rome (Walter Veltroni) all three were party veterans and ex-legislators at one time associated considered to have national ambitions. While most European social democratic parties largely underwent modernisation along ‘Third Way’ lines during this period, this quartet instead pursued business-friendly urban renaissance policies (derided in Italy as buonismo  lit. ‘goodism’) around beautification of the public realm (often funded by private finance) and the enhancement and promotion of nightlife and culture, as well as media-friendly personal branding around their city leadership (from ‘Red Ken’ to Wowereit’s “poor but sexy” Berlin).

Following the onset of the financial crisis, voters in London and Rome instead opted for Boris Johnson and Gianni Alemanno of the right. In Paris and Berlin incumbents clung on, with Delanoë (in office since 2001), successfully handing over to his deputy Anne Hidalgo in 2014. Both cities had in fact previously been associated with the centre-right, for instance Jacques Chirac’s Paris mayoralty between 1977 and 1995. In London’s 2012 mayoral race Livingstone failed to dislodge Conservative Boris Johnson from City Hall, who himself now harbours national leadership ambitions and has largely followed his own buonismo policies around taller buildings, bike hire and ‘iconic’ buses, detached from rising housing and commuting costs in the capital.

This time we include the full suite of Scandinavian capitals. With the exception of perpetually Social Democrat Copenhagen, the city leaders of Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm all hail from nationally governing moderate conservative parties. While Michael Häupl has managed to govern Vienna as a Social Democrat since 1994, the right has remained in control of the Spanish capital Madrid since 1989. Socialists however remain in charge in Amsterdam and Brussels.

Outside of Europe we see consistent Democratic occupancy of the main US city halls, thanks no less to Michael Bloomberg’s exit from office at the end of his third term in 2013  eighth-ranked San Diego is the only Republican-held city in the top 10, with only six in the top 50 American cities. In Brazil the left-wing Workers’ Party also regained their home turf São Paulo in 2013, while in Tokyo the more emollient communicator Yoichi Masuzoe was elected Governor in 2014, replacing the hardline nationalist Shintaro Ishihara who bowed out a year earlier.

Latin America capitals such as Bogotá and Buenos Aires are notable for being held by mayors belonging to opposition parties at national level. But not all mayors opt for party labels  the city leaders of Mexico City, Sydney and Athens are successful independents in their own right. And a number of omissions are present compared to the 2009 list  in Dhaka and Karachi, the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively have since both decided to abolish elected city leadership and place their cities in the hands of appointed administrators (as is Kuala Lumpur).

It would be wrong to assume that all city mayors reside the left/right spectrum, though in the 2014 table we show an increase in the left tally and a majority on the centre and left overall, not least on account of the end of the Bloomberg mayoralty in NYC, the Social Democrat takeover of Frankfurt in 2012 and the retaking of Seoul by a progressive mayor a year previously. The Green movement makes its first entry on the table in the form of Wellington’s Celia Wade-Brown, re-elected 2013 (though current Rio mayor Eduardo Paes was briefly a Green).

Despite the squeeze on their national parties in Europe, centrist mayors belonging to parties affiliated with the Liberal International remains constant, with Xavier Trias of Barcelona elected in 2011, and the addition of Casblanca, where Mohammed Sajid represents the Constitutional Union. Two new African cities on the list, Lagos and Nairobi, are also led by governors from liberal democratic parties. Patricia de Lille of Cape Town and Bangkok’s Governor Paribatra of the Democrat Party both remain. However, the Thai party is essentially centre-right and royalist (Paribatra is the son of a Thai prince).

The two Chinese cities listed, Beijing and Shanghai, are naturally led by a mayor of the ruling state Communist Party of China. Again, mayors whose party label defies international comparison include those of Jakarta (aligned to the ‘state religion’ Pancasila), Mumbai (Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist right-wing association), Tehran (the Islamic Society of Engineers, a conservative faction of the Islamic state) and Moscow, which remains in the hands of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia following the 2013 elections. Such labels can be ascribed to allegiance to the state among public officials through whatever form, usually a professional body or party associated with a national leader. Finally, there are centre-right populist parties with dynastic tendencies, such as that of Manila’s former president turned mayor (since 2013) Joseph Estrada (Force of the Filipino Masses) and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) of prime minister and former mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which holds both the capital Ankara and Istanbul.

Mayors, parties and politics

City

Mayor

First elected

Party* & Politics

Americas

Boston

Marty Walsh

2013

Democratic (Centre)

Chicago

Rahm Emmanuel

2011

Democratic (Centre)

Los Angeles

Eric Garcetti

2013

Democratic (Centre)

New York City

Bill de Blasio

2013

Democratic (Centre-left)

San Francisco

Edwin Lee

2011

Democratic (Centre)

Toronto

Rob Ford

2010

Independent/Progressive Conservative (Right)

Vancouver

Gregor Robertson

2008

New Democratic Party (SI) (Centre-left)

Washington DC

Muriel Bowser

2015

Democratic (Centre)

Bogotá

Gustavo Petro

2011

Progressivist Movement (Left)

Buenos Aires

Mauricio Macri

2007

Republican Proposal (IDU) (Centre-left)

Caracas

Antonio Ledezma

2008

Fearless Peoples Alliance (Centre-left)

Lima

Susana Villarán

2010

Social Force (Centre-left)

Mexico City

Miguel Ángel Mancera

2012

Independent (Centre-left)

Rio de Janeiro

Eduardo Paes

2009

Brazil Democratic Movement Party (Centre)

Santiago

Carolina Tohá

2012

Party for Democracy (SI/PA) (Centre-left)

São Paulo

Fernando Haddad

2012

Workers' Party (Left)

Europe

Amsterdam

Eberhard van der Laan

2010

Labour Party (PA/SI) (Centre-left)

Athens

Giorgos Kamanis

2010

Independent (supported by PASOK and New Democracy) (Centre)

Barcelona

Ada Colau

2015

Indignados (Left)

Berlin

Michael Müller

2014

Social Democratic Party (PA/SI) (Centre-left)

Brussels

Yvan Mayeur

2013

Socialist Party (SI/PA) (Centre-left)

Copenhagen

Frank Jensen

2009

Social Democrats (SI/PA) (Centre-left)

Frankfurt

Peter Feldmann

2012

Social Democratic Party (PA/SI) (Centre-left)

Helsinki

Jussi Pajunen

2005

National Coalition Party (IDU) (Centre-right)

Liverpool

Joe Anderson

2012

Labour Party (Centre-left) (PA/SI)

London

Boris Johnson

2008

Conservative (IDU) (Centre-right)

Madrid

Manuela Carmena

2015

Podemos (Left)

Milan

Giuliano Pisapia

2011

Left Ecology Freedom / Democratic Party (Left)

Moscow

Sergey Sobyanin

2010

United Russia (Centre-right)

Munich

Dieter Reiter

2014

Social Democratic Party (PA/SI) (Centre-left)

Oslo

Stian Berger

2009

Conservative Party (IDU) (Centre-right)

Paris

Anne Hidalgo

2014

Socialist Party (PA/SI) (Centre-left)

Rome

Ignazio Marino

2013

Democratic Party (PA) (Centre-left)

Stockholm

Sten Nordin

2008

Moderate Party (IDU) (Centre-right)

Vienna

Michael Häupl

1994

Social Democratic Party (SI/PA) (Centre-left)

Warsaw

Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz

2006

Civic Platform (Centre-right)

Zurich

Corine Mauch

2009

Social Democratic Party (SI) (Centre-left)

Australasia

Auckland

Len Brown

2010

Independent (Centre-left)

Melbourne

Robert Doyle

2008

Liberal Party (Centre-right)

Sydney

Clover Moore

2004

Independent (Centre)

Wellington

Celia Wade-Brown

2010

Green Party (GG) (Centre-left)

Asia

Ankara

Melih Gökçek

1994

Justice and Development Party (Centre-right)

Bangkok

Sukhumbhand Paribatra

2009

Democrat Party (Centre)

Beijing

Wang Anshun

2012

Communist Party of China

Delhi NCT

Vacant

n/a

n/a

Istanbul

Kadir Topbas

2004

Justice and Development Party (Centre-right)

Jakarta

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama

2014

Indonesian Democratic Party - Struggle (Centre)

Manila

Joseph Estrada

2013

Force of the Filipino Masses (Centre-right)

Mumbai

Sunil Prabhu

2012

Shiv Sena

Seoul

Park Won-soon

2011

New Politics Alliance for Democracy (Centre)

Shanghai

Yang Xiong

2012

Communist Party of China

Taipei

Hau Lung-pin

2006

Chinese Nationalist Party (IDU) (Centre-right)

Tokyo

Yoichi Masuzoe

2014

Independent (supported by Liberal Democrat Party and New Komeito) (Centre-right)

The Code of Ethics has been instituted for city leaders who wish to perform their duties beyond all reproach

CITY MAYORS
Code of Ethics
The City Mayors Foundation was established in 2003 to promote, encourage and facilitate good local government. To strengthen local government further, City Mayors has now instituted a Code of Ethics for city leaders who wish to perform their duties beyond all reproach.

Mayors featured by City Mayors and those shortlisted for the World Mayor Prize have been asked to confirm that they and their administrations adhere to the letter and spirit of the Code. Ultimately, City Mayors aims to establish the professional title of Chartered Mayor in recognition of city leaders who bring high integrity and competence to public service as well as adhere to the code of ethics. More